Grasshopper
Crème de menthe, white crème de cacao and cream, shaken until frothy — a pastel-green dessert in a glass.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Prep time
- 4 min
- Strength
- 10% ABV
- Glassware
- Coupe glass
- Base
- liqueur led
- Serves
- 1
Ingredients
- Green crème de menthe30ml
- White crème de cacao30ml
- Cream30ml
Garnish: Chocolate shavings (optional)
Method
- Add the crème de menthe, crème de cacao and cream to a shaker with ice.
- Shake hard for 12–15 seconds until well chilled and frothy.
- Strain into a chilled coupe glass.
- Garnish with chocolate shavings if using.
Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Cocktail shaker
Household swap: A jar with a very tight-fitting lid, shaken firmly with both hands.
Hawthorne strainer
Household swap: A slotted spoon held over the shaker while pouring.
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of Cream
Best substitute: Coconut Cream
This is the richness in this drink.
Quantity: Use the same amount
Flavour impact: Coconut cream adds its own tropical flavour and makes the drink dairy-free, though it's noticeably thicker and shifts the taste away from the classic version.
What changes
Expect more sweetness and more intensity. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.
- Sweetness ↑
- The drink will land sweeter, which also makes it read as less sharp and slightly heavier even though nothing else changed.
- Intensity ↑
- A more intensely flavoured ingredient will start to dominate the components around it.
- Character
- Both are rich and creamy, and you lose smooth and mellow, and you gain tropical and sweet. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.
To correct for it
- Cut the syrup or sugar back — start by halving it and taste before adding any back.
- Scale it back by a third and let the other ingredients hold their share.
Moderate confidenceA workable dairy-free option that changes the flavour balance somewhat.Shifts the drinkBecomes a variation
Make it better
- Shake harder and longer than you would for a spirit-only cocktail — the cream needs real agitation to aerate and froth properly.
- Chill the coupe glass beforehand; this drink has no ice in the glass itself to keep it cold.
- Use fresh, cold cream straight from the fridge — it emulsifies better than cream that's been sitting out.
- Adjust sweetness gradually and taste as you go — it's easy to add more syrup, impossible to take it out.
Rescue this drink
- Too sweet
- Reduce both liqueurs slightly next time and add a touch more cream to balance.
- Doesn't froth
- Shake harder and for longer — a lazy shake won't properly aerate the cream.
- Cream separates or looks curdled
- Make sure the cream is fresh and properly chilled before shaking; older cream is more prone to splitting.
- Too rich to finishgeneral guidance
- Cream and coconut flatten the palate rather than refreshing it, so a second one is always harder work than the first. A squeeze of lime or lemon cuts through more effectively than reducing the cream, which just makes it thinner without making it brighter. Serving it in a smaller glass is the other honest answer.
- Texture looks split or curdledgeneral guidance
- This usually happens when citrus is added too fast to dairy, or the drink sat too long before serving. Add citrus gradually while stirring next time — a split drink often can't be fully recovered once it happens.
- Served too warmgeneral guidance
- Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.
- Over-diluted (tastes watery)general guidance
- Likely shaken too long, or with too much ice surface area. For one serving there's no fixing it after the fact — rebuild with fewer, larger ice cubes and a shorter shake. Planning a batch? Shorten the ice-contact time across the whole round, not just this glass.
- Under-diluted (tastes harsh or too concentrated)general guidance
- For one serving, stir in a few drops of chilled water to open it up. For a batch, extend the shake time slightly on the next round.
- No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
- A jar with a very tight-fitting lid, shaken firmly with both hands.
- No cocktail strainergeneral guidance
- A slotted spoon held over the shaker while pouring.
Make ahead & storage
Batch the base, finish at serving
Batch the 2 stable components days ahead and add cream when you pour.
Add about 27% water to the batch to replace what the ice would otherwise contribute, or it will pour noticeably harsher than a fresh one.
- Cream:
- Dairy separates when it sits with acid, and once split it cannot be stirred back.
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
very sweet, soft, very rich — a rich and creamy drink served straight up, no ice.
Very sweet
Dry → Sweet
A sweet drink by design — the sugar is a feature, not a fault.
What drives it: Green crème de menthe — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Very rich
Light → Rich
Very rich — this is closer to a dessert than to a refreshment.
What drives it: Cream — adds most of the weight.
Moderate
Delicate → Bold
Moderate: assertive enough to hold its own, mild enough for a second.
What drives it: Green crème de menthe — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- MintLeads
From Green crème de menthe
- Cocoa
From White crème de cacao
Every aroma here comes from the liquid itself; nothing is layered on top.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — each with the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sweet
- Likely cause
- Green crème de menthe is carrying the sugar here, and it is the easiest thing in the drink to over-pour — syrup clings to a jigger and a "splash" is rarely the same twice.
- What to change
- Cut green crème de menthe by about a third and rebuild. If it is already made, a squeeze of citrus is faster than starting again.
- What that does
- It will taste drier and slightly thinner — sugar carries body as well as sweetness, so you lose a little weight along with it.
It tastes weak
- Likely cause
- Usually dilution rather than measurement: shaking adds water as it chills, and wet or small ice adds far more of it than cold, large ice does.
- What to change
- Use larger, colder ice and work faster. Adding more spirit fixes the symptom and unbalances everything else.
- What that does
- The drink gains definition without gaining sugar. It will also read as slightly sharper, which is what 'more presence' usually means in practice.
It's watery
- Likely cause
- Shaking adds water while it chills, and the two cannot be separated. Wet ice from a freezer door, or small cubes, will over-dilute before the drink is properly cold.
- What to change
- Use bigger, drier, colder ice and stop sooner. Chilling the glass first buys you time you would otherwise spend diluting.
- What that does
- More flavour concentration at the same temperature. Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — this is a target, not a direction.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- This drink's aroma comes from mint and cocoa, carried in the liquid. Serving it too cold suppresses that: volatile compounds do not leave a very cold drink.
- What to change
- Let it sit for a minute before drinking, and use a glass that narrows towards the rim to concentrate what does escape.
- What that does
- More of the aroma escapes and the drink reads as more intense. The cost is temperature: a drink left to warm also dilutes faster, so this is a trade against how long it stays right.
It tastes one-dimensional
- Likely cause
- With 3 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a rich and creamy drink is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
- What to change
- Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
- What that does
- More going on at the same strength and sweetness. Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 4/5
- Sourness
- 0/5
- Bitterness
- 0/5
- Strength
- 1/5
- Fruitiness
- 0/5
- Freshness
- 2/5
- Creaminess
- 4/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate onlyLiqueur sugar content and cream fat percentage vary by brand.- Calories
- 260 kcal
- Sugar
- 24 g
- Carbohydrates
- 26 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 1.2
- US standard drinks
- 0.68
- ABV
- 10%
- Serving size
- 120 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~66 kcal from alcohol, ~194 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 195–325 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes both liqueurs at 20% ABV and standard 30ml pours.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
Flying Grasshopper
Add 20ml vodka for a stronger, boozier version.
Frozen Grasshopper
Blend with a cup of crushed ice instead of shaking for a frozen, milkshake-like texture.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A shaken build: a rich and creamy liqueur-led-based drink, served straight up, no ice — rich in the mouth.
Rich and creamy
Built around dairy or cream, so richness rather than acidity carries the drink.
Modifier
Green crème de menthe
White crème de cacao
Richness
Cream
Technique
shaken
Ice is thrown against the liquid and against itself, chipping fragments off and driving air through the mix. Chilling, dilution and aeration all happen at once and cannot be separated.
A lighter, briefly frothy body and a cloudy appearance that settles as it stands. The aeration blunts alcoholic heat, which is why a shaken drink tastes softer than a stirred one of the same strength.
What it ruins: Clarity, and any carbonation. A shaken spirits-only drink arrives cloudy with ice shards floating in it, and shaking anything fizzy is the one rule with no exceptions.
Everything about shaking →How the technique works →Dilution
During mixing, then strained
Water from ice typically makes up around 30% of the finished drink for a shaken build (commonly 25–35%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Straight up, no ice
Coupe glass · 120ml
Chilled during mixing and then strained away from the ice, so it arrives at its coldest and most concentrated and warms from the first sip — which is why 120ml is the right size for it.
Texture and aroma
Dairy gives weight and coats the palate, which rounds off sharp edges and mutes bitterness.
No dedicated aromatic component — what you smell is the spirit itself, which is a deliberate choice in a drink this spare.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Drinking this with food: pudding, and afterwards
On its recorded taste scores this drink meets the test for pudding, and afterwards — the page explains the principle behind it rather than simply asserting the pairing.
Making good drinks at home
A good drink to learn on. The beginner path covers the four things that actually make a home cocktail disappointing.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Grasshopper
American, generally credited to Tujague's bar in New Orleans, said to have won a 1919 cocktail competition.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
- Golden Cadillac
Golden Cadillac
You may like this because it's part of the same after-dinner family as the Grasshopper.
- Amaro Sour
Amaro Sour
You may like this because it shares a sweet taste profile with the Grasshopper.
- Brandy Alexander
Brandy Alexander
You may like this because it shares a sweet-forward profile with the Grasshopper, but uses brandy instead of liqueur-led.
Questions people ask
- Mine's too sweet — can I fix it?
- See "Rescue this drink" above — reduce both liqueurs slightly and add a little more cream to bring it back into balance.
- Why isn't mine frothy?
- See "Rescue this drink" above — this needs a genuinely hard, long shake to aerate the cream properly. Chilled fresh cream also holds better than older cream.
- What's a Flying Grasshopper?
- A real variation listed above — the same build with vodka added for a stronger version.
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
Recipe confidence
A well-documented mid-20th-century classic with a consistent, simple equal-parts recipe.